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Wednesday, May 25, 2011

It's Come to This: Soap Ad Now Racist

Gee, it's so obvious, isn't it? An ad with a black woman on one side, a white woman on the other and someone passably a Latina in the middle. We've finally reached a diversity quota for soap ads. But no, there's deep, dark sinister racism lurking just below the surface if you look hard enough.

Soap giant Dove has landed itself in hot water after an advert for one of its products appeared to suggest it can change a user's skin colour.

The promotion, for Dove VisibleCare Creme Body Wash - a £2.69 product that is available in Boots - features a 'before' and 'after' skin chart behind a black woman, possibly a Latina and a blonde - all wrapped in towels - standing beside each other.

The caption reads: 'Visibly more beautiful skin from the most unexpected of places - your shower.'

But critics are in a lather over the ad, accusing Dove of implied - and albeit unintentional - racism.

Under the headline 'Dove body wash turns black women into Latino women, into white women', one blogger wrote: 'At least, that's what one could possibly infer by the left-to-right before and after progression in this ad for Dove VisibleCare.

This is so stupid, I'm thinking it's got to be a fake Photoshop ad. But it doesn't look like it.'

If there were three white women in the ad they'd be called racist. They skip that route and they're still racist. Where some weirdos see racism, I strangely see three women wearing towels. But hey, that's just me, I guess.